In pictures: RCA and Nasa collaboration leads to Mars rovers of the future

This rover enables the team's projected mission of preparing Mars for future colonisation through ‘planting’ greenhouse modules on the surface of Mars. The modules would be a mix
of greenhouses for food production, and botanical gardens for plant
systematic research and will utilise the ice deposits for harvesting
water. The first mission is to send fully automated modules to mars to
initiate the seeding process, while the second is a follow up of a two
part vehicle and four crew members to carry out harvesting and
expanding the greenhouses as well as conducting evolutionary plant
research in the botanical modules.

RCA

It's not every day Nasa comes into class
to lecture about its future technology projections. But for one
group of design students, it was all part of a project to design a
Mars rover for the future.

It may seem like a grown-up version of the "draw a spaceship"
challenges given to primary school children, but Ashley Hall,
Deputy Head of the Department of Innovation Design, suggests
otherwise. In an interview with Wired.co.uk, he said: "Designers
are just beginning to think about space being a creative environment, what with SpaceShipOne, Virgin
Galactic and private enterprise moving into space and space
hotels."

The challenge is relevant for the design students' Extreme
Environments module, which the surface of Mars, with winds of
several hundred kilometres per hour and cold temperatures, fits
pretty well.

Daniele Bedini from Nasa's department of Space Architecture
came on board with the project and helped to show the students how
the space agency predicts future technologies.

Hall says: "Nasa showed up their system of push pull technology
projections. Push technology using the information we know now,
which we can use and exploit to push us towards new developments.
Pull technology are new manufacturing systems which we can use to
pull us towards new designs."

Using this system, Nasa has mapped out the next 30 to 40 years
of new missions -- and the students were to do the same.

Hall explains how the class was given "a lot of freedom" with the
task, which spanned a month. "We only described the physical
conditions of the planet," he says. "The level of gravity there,
the gases, the deep terrain. The rest was left up to them to help
them project." The "rest" being Conops, or a concept of operations
-- a collection of details that every projected space flight uses
to exist, for example how many astronauts are travelling and how
long they are going to be in the rover.

This flexibility made for varied results. "I think what's
interesting to me is the diversity of the approach from the
different groups," Hall says. "One has created a module which digs
itself under the surface, which solves a lot of issues."

This is the third consecutive year the RCA has run the Extreme
Environments project with a space bias. In the past, designs for
space hotels and capsules have been realised for exhibition at
design weeks. The designs for the Mars rover have been sent off to
Nasa, and the students are awaiting feedback.

In the meantime, however, you can see the futuristic projections
and their descriptions in our gallery below.